“Was there a reason the prince”—Vivienne yawns loudly—“never settled down?”
I nod. “Yes. He never really thought the girls from the nearby towns were after him for the right reasons. He told himself that he would rather die alone than spend his life with someone who loved him for his title rather than his heart.”
“Oh… that’s really sad,” she mutters, her breathing beginning to slow down.
“In some ways, it was, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter because it all changed that night. On a breather walk from the commotion inside, he ran into the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in his life. At first, he thought she was flirting with him, and naturally, he was too. It was going well until she unleashed her anger on the scary beast that pushed them both into the nearby pond, soaking them from head to toe.”
Another roar of a plane passes by, and I feel Vivienne tighten in my arms. A single tear traces the length of her cheek, and I can’t stop the wave of sadness in my chest as I wipe it away with the pad of my thumb.
“At that moment, he fell—literally. What he never anticipated, though, was that the more time he spent with her, the more he would fall figuratively.
Her one tear turns into two, and the two turn into three until waterworks erupt. There’s no way to ask what it is she's thinking about when she’s asleep, but something tells me it’s related to her parents.
The mystery of their plane crash still lingers in the back of my mind—and I suspect it lingers in hers as well.
Needing to get to the bottom of it, I make a mental note to call my private investigator.
Then I start thinking of all the ways I’ll help her get past her fears. It’s ingrained in her—the fear of the unknown, the outcome if it all goes wrong, but never the possibility if it goes right.
I’ll be patient. We’ll navigate it together. And soon enough, she’ll be crushing it at the conference in Italy.
CHAPTER 30
NATE
The crowd erupts in a second round of applause as Vivienne completes the question period following her talk.
There’s a genuine smile on her face as she walks off stage, and when she meets my eyes, I can’t help but reciprocate it.
What a vision she was presenting her research.So passionate, so knowledgeable, so eloquent.I can say with confidence that she was in her utmost element up there.
One of the first times I asked her why she’d decided to pursue postgraduate education, she’d given me some half-assed answer about how she wouldn’t get far without it.
But watching her today, it was obvious that this was her passion. She loved chemistry and the impact she could make on others’ lives; she’d just gotten torn down by the hardships of her project…and the people telling her she couldn’t do it.
And by people, I mean Arjun—that no-good motherfucker who didn’t clap for a member of his own group when she’d finished presenting.
He thought he was slick, crossing his arms to fly under the radar—which is exactly why I gave the leg of his chair a (not-so) friendly and very harsh kick. He looked back at me in distaste but seemed to learn his lesson quickly when he clapped the second time around.
“Hey,” Vivienne says casually as she plops into the now-empty seat beside me.
Soon after she finished, the chair of the imaging chemistry section announced it was time for a coffee break, prompting everyone to file out of the room. Before then, every single seat of the largest conference room had been filled, with people even piling up at the back.
That many people were eager to listen to her research, and honestly, I could see why. The probes she’d synthesized for widely used imaging modalities like MRI and PET are likely to change the medical field as we know it.
I'd like to say I understood more, but that would be a lie—I was too transfixed by her. Plus, my knowledge of organic chemistry is limited to, quite literally, nothing.
“You were amazing up there,” I say in sincerity, only to be met with a wrinkle of her nose.
“I’m not too sure about that. My voice cracked at one point, and I’m pretty sure people picked up on mynervousness. There also might have been a mistake in one of my reaction schemes—”
I cut off her word vomit with a squeeze of her thigh.
Her body stills, then she tilts her head as I pull out a rectangular box from the pocket of my trousers. I hand it over to her before she can say anything else.
Vivienne is a perfectionist, but at times, she needs to realize that no one pays attention to the details as much as she does.
“What is that?” Vivienne asks while inspecting the blue velvet.
